GERRY MODDEJONGE, QMI Agency

EDMONTON - He assembled all the pieces on the board, but Eric Tillman was less-than impressed with the early results.

After getting off to an 0-2 start in the preseason, the Edmonton Eskimos general manager said there is still plenty of work to be done to make the team competitive in the regular season.

“It’s never good to lose to the Calgary Stampeders,” said Tillman, who watched his side fall 37-22 on Friday night to close out the preseason schedule at home against their provincial rivals. “They have a very good football team. They came in (Friday) night and played the game like it was a regular-season game and they were very impressive.

“I think it’s obvious that we’re still a work in process.”

That isn’t to say some early setbacks weren’t to be expected with a young squad and almost entirely new coaching staff.

“I have great confidence in this coaching staff and what we’re doing,” Tillman said. “We had a lot of questions going in and some have been answered in an affirmative fashion, in other areas we have to get better.”

While the Eskimos had a better outing to open the preseason against the Saskatchewan Roughriders last week with a 23-22 loss on the road, coaches poured over film from both games to make sure they didn’t overlook any potential contributors.

“There were absolutely some guys that played their way in and a few guys that played their way out (Friday) night,” Tillman said.”Because of the performance (Friday) night, this was probably a more challenging process for us than Calgary. They’re a veteran club. When you’re an established club, you’re just making a few tweaks here and there.

“We’re still with new systems, new coaches, new players. Both of these games were paramount in the evolution of the evaluation process.”